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When my sisters and I were younger, our mom helped us understand the environment of the rainforest by making a terrarium with us! We used an old fish aquarium and put moist dirt inside. In the dirt we planted tropical plants from our local Home Depot and covered the top with plastic wrap. The terrarium was set in a sunny spot to keep the plants healthy. For at least a week, we watched to see what might happen. By the time a week had passed, there were water droplets on the sides of the glass and on the top hanging from the plastic. In addition to teaching children about the environment of the rainforrest, this activity can also go along wonderfully with teaching the water cycle!

To explain the effects of modern day resource management I split the class up into two groups by making them vote. The poll question was "Should we cut down this rainforest for a profit." The goal of the lesson was to probe the students to ask the right questions about the destruction of this land. "What would the rainforest be used for?" is an example of a good question. As the teacher, you can make up any scenario with this activity. For me, I said my rainforest would be used for harvesting medicinal herbs for cancer research. This tilts the scales and gets students to think about the value of a resource such as the rainforest and it's usefulness to humans.